Going Deeper: A Vision for Discipleship In this episode we pick up where we left on in Part 1, answering the question "How do we naturally do what is good?"  With our guest, Shane Kuester, we talk about the differences between the way that discipleship is taught in many churches versus the way discipleship is taught by Jesus.  Specifically we talk through questions like:

• How can we view obedience as a way of life instead of a restrictive list of rules?
• Why our lives should be focused around training with Jesus rather than trying really hard to "be good".
• How taking time to observe our thought patterns can dramatically impact our life with God.
• How to practice the spiritual disciplines.
• The role of our habits in the spiritual life.

How to "Do" Discipleship The church likes to talk a lot about discipleship - but not discipleship as Jesus talked about it.  Discipleship in the church is characteristically presented as:

• Serving as a leader in a particular church program (i.e.Sunday school, Bible studies, Greeters, and ushers)
• Reading your Bible and Praying

And, perhaps even:

• Tithing
• Practicing evangelism outside the church, or inviting people into the church.

But spiritually seeking Christians, who long for a deep relationship with Jesus, have done all of these things and still don't feel like they are living out their Christian lives to the fullest.  This was presented overtly in the REVEAL survey put out by Willow Creek.  The study showed that it was the most spiritually mature believers that had to take on the most personal (and private) responsibility for their spiritual growth because the church was unhelpful in leading them to a deeper relationship with Jesus.

The purpose of this episode was to discuss the real meaning of discipleship, and more importantly how to incorporate it into our "real lives".  The true test of our life with Jesus isn't what we do on Sunday morning - it's what we do every morning.  If we are going to have a Christianity that impacts the rest of the world, we must first have a Christianity that impacts every day of our week.

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